Multi-Tenant Isolation

ATHENA provides complete data isolation between customers using PostgreSQL Row-Level Security (RLS).

How It Works

Every database table includes a customer_id column with RLS policies:

-- Example: Decision table RLS policy
CREATE POLICY customer_isolation ON decisions
  USING (customer_id = current_setting('app.customer_id')::uuid);

Enforcement Levels

Level	Mechanism	Bypass Possible?
Database	PostgreSQL RLS	No
Application	Query filters	No (redundant)
API	Authentication	No

Validation

• 100% test coverage for customer isolation

• 390M+ records processed with no cross-customer leaks

• Automated testing in CI/CD pipeline

How Requests Are Isolated

1. Request received → API key validated
2. Customer ID extracted → From API key lookup
3. Database session set → SET app.customer_id = 'uuid'
4. Query executed → RLS policy filters results
5. Response returned → Only customer's data

Example

Two customers query the same endpoint:

Customer A

curl https://api.athenatrust.ai/v1/audit-trail \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer CUSTOMER_A_KEY"

Returns only Customer A's decisions.

Customer B

curl https://api.athenatrust.ai/v1/audit-trail \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer CUSTOMER_B_KEY"

Returns only Customer B's decisions.

Same database. Complete isolation.

What's Isolated

Data Type	Isolated?	Mechanism
Decisions	✅	RLS
Audit trail	✅	RLS
API keys	✅	RLS
Webhooks	✅	RLS
Users	✅	RLS
Settings	✅	RLS
Exports	✅	RLS

Shared Resources

Some resources are intentionally shared:

Resource	Shared?	Reason
Intelligence engines	✅	Algorithms, not data
Export templates	✅	Standard formats
Rate limit counters	Per-customer	Fair usage

Testing Isolation

We continuously test isolation:

// Test that Customer A can't access Customer B's data
it('should not return other customer data', async () => {
  const response = await api.get('/audit-trail', {
    headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${customerAKey}` }
  });
  
  for (const decision of response.data.decisions) {
    expect(decision.customerId).toBe(customerAId);
  }
});

Security Guarantees

1. No cross-customer queries — Impossible at database level

2. No data leakage — RLS prevents accidental exposure

3. No privilege escalation — API keys scoped to customer

4. Audit trail — All access logged per customer

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